


Maybe it's all Going to Turn out Alright

by navyblueoveryou



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, Multi, Other, PTSD, Trauma, Trigger warning death, god im so sorry idk why i did this, trigger warning, trigger warning suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24986521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navyblueoveryou/pseuds/navyblueoveryou
Summary: Ellie's been trying to cope with untreated post traumatic stress disorder in a post-outbreak world where there isn't much knowledge of or care for mental health.This should be riddled with trigger warnings - major character death. Please check tags before reading.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 129





	Maybe it's all Going to Turn out Alright

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly didn't want to write this, but as someone who struggles with PTSD myself, I felt that it was an important PSA after finishing the game that Ellie clearly *does* suffer from very intense PTSD, which can become alienating and very difficult to live with if it goes untreated. Since it doesn't seem like a mental health professional is the most important person to have in Jackson per the game, I wanted to explore the worst possible outcome for Ellie, Dina, and everyone around them when Ellie's unable to cope with her trauma.
> 
> Check in with your strong people. Check in with your people who struggle. 
> 
> 1-800-273-8255: National Suicide Prevention Hotline  
> Resources for my fellow LGBTQIA+ friends who are struggling: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-yourself/lgbtq/  
> For my fellow trans folx, Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
> 
> Take care, friends.
> 
> Songs mentioned in this fic: 
> 
> Future Days - Pearl Jam  
> Ecstasy - Crooked Still  
> Appointments - Julien Baker

Ellie lie awake, listening to the breeze pass through the open bedroom window. Dina had been running hot lately, but otherwise felt well. The general consensus seemed to be postpartum hormone flare ups, and Maria had sent homemade herbal teas to help combat some of the symptoms. But while Dina was nestled comfortably between their sheets, Ellie was up pacing. 

She hadn’t slept in days, and her battle against insomnia was always trumped by the nightmares that terrorized her until sunrise.

Images of Joel. The sounds of him crying out in anguish. The eviscerating memory of her own helplessness as she begged the WLF for mercy.

Why hadn’t they killed her instead?

Ellie took the night shift with JJ from the day he was born. It was an excuse to be awake without others suggesting she get some help, but also some much needed time to clear her head and bond with her newly born son. Her little potato.

She’d sing him that Pearl Jam song almost every night- the same song Joel had taught her as a teenager, the same one JJ had heard all throughout Dina’s pregnancy. The same song they slow danced to in their kitchen when Ellie decided Dina needed a break from housework. 

Their song.

“Used to be days of you and me,” Ellie told JJ one night as she cradled him in her arm, holding his bottle while his little fingers wrapped around hers. “You and me being me and your mom. But now it’s us two plus you, and that makes three, kiddo.”

She smiled at him softly as his eyes watched her over the rim of the bottle. “Guess we’ll have to rewrite the song ourselves, huh.” He hummed and gave her a little grin, kicking his feet in response. Ellie chuckled. “Yeah, we’ll do that when you’re old enough to not be a poopypants.”

—

_No.  
No. No no no no no. _

Maybe if she said it enough, it would manifest into reality. No. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. 

She couldn’t be gone.

Dina, always the expert on calming Ellie when flashbacks threw her into reliving her most horrific moments, couldn’t be soothed now. Her ears were ringing, and all she could see was Maria, desperately trying to hold her back as Tommy used his body as a shield. 

“Ellie!” she screamed, but the sound of her own voice was muffled by Maria pulling Dina’s head into her chest in an attempt to pacify and blind her. “No,” she whimpered, desperately trying to break free, but the older woman was relentless. They weren’t going to let this image be burned into Dina’s mind’s eye. Not after everything she’d been through already. “No, please...” she could feel herself breaking with her voice as she crumbled to the floor, Maria still holding her, stroking her hair. “Please, God, no...”

_No._

—

_“Dearest Dina,_

_We are sure that you are tired of hearing this, but please know that we are devastated for you and JJ. We are so sorry for your loss. It is one that has hit Jackson just as hard, but of course, we can only assume how you must be feeling out there on the farm. I know you’d like to keep your independence and are reluctant to come back to Jackson, but if you ever change your mind, know that you always have a place here. This town is still your home whenever you need it to be. Sometimes we need a change of scenery when we experience loss. I know that Jackson isn’t anywhere new to you, but it might help to get out of that house. Even just for the time being. While you and JJ cope._

_Maria and Tommy will be bringing meals out once a week. Please be sure to eat them. Out of respect, we will stay back until you ask for us. We understand that healing requires alone time sometimes. If you ever need anything, even if it’s just us taking JJ for a weekend, please don’t hesitate to ask. We love you both so dearly._

_Be strong. You’re in our prayers._

_Love,  
Robin” _

While JJ slept upstairs, Dina sat at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the letter she’d received from Jesse’s parents. The house was full of flowers and meals laced with condolences. It was as if people were hoping that she’d heal, while simultaneously holding open her wounds and pouring salt into them.

She got up and wandered down the hall, into a spare bedroom that served mostly as JJ’s playroom. Dina picked up a photo of herself and her sister, tears welling in her eyes. “Thalia,” she whispered. “I wish you were here now. I can’t do this alone.”

Her sister had been so full of sage wisdom - an old soul in a young body. God had taken her too soon. Then Joel. Then Jesse. Now Ellie.

_“I think we should go out like Eugene.”_

_“From a stroke?”_

_“No. From old age. Living a long life.”_

_“You? No way. C’mon. You’re way too reckless.”_

Dina set the photo down and steadied herself against the desk, taking slow, shaking breaths. The banter they’d shared on patrol together, the same day they’d gotten high on the couch in Eugene’s secret grow op, the same day they'd realized that their love was so much more than friendly.

Dina had made a plan while lying on that couch, wrapped in the warmth of Ellie’s arms and the afterglow, that she would do whatever it took to die from old age, so long as it was at Ellie’s side.

_To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die._

Had she been unapproachable? Was her tone off? Why hadn’t Ellie just talked to her? What had they said to one another before that irreparable moment that now stood frozen in time, the sight of Ellie’s lifeless body seared into her brain.

Dina would never forget it.

—

Ellie held herself up against the kitchen counter, head bowed, heart pounding, her breathing shallow and uncomfortable. She had learned to swim in recent years, but the panicked concern that she still held about drowning seemed applicable to this situation, despite the fact that she was nowhere near a body of water. Just the dripping faucet as water clinked against the sink.

_Clink.  
Clink.  
Clink. _

In the next room, a song played quietly over the record player. 

_**Oh when shall I see Jesus and reign with him above  
And from the flowing fountain drink everlasting love  
Oh had I wings I would fly away and be at rest... **_

Ironic. This song had been playing the night she and Dina had shared their first kiss. A night that she held so near and dear to her heart. She had always loved Dina, and to find that the feeling was mutual, well...

Her disbelief often felt like a tarpit that she consistently struggled to fight her way out of. Even now.

But Dina had stayed around, through the good and the bad days that somehow always tended to lean towards bad once they'd returned from Seattle. The trauma that kept Ellie awake all night, the nausea caused by memories of horrific brutality that kept her skinny and unable to eat. The torment that took her by the ankles and dragged her, despite her desperate attempt at clawing to freedom, into the darkest corners of her mind and slowly chipped away at the Ellie Dina had loved so fiercely. 

What was happening to her? 

"Tell your mama to take a deep breath, huh," came that voice of reason from the next room. There was Dina, standing in the doorway, cradling JJ on her hip as he gnawed at his thumb. His teeth were coming in. How insane that he was already getting so big - it felt as if he'd been born last week.

Ellie turned, pulled herself up onto the countertop to sit as they came into the kitchen to join her. JJ immediately began babbling with happiness, clapping his tiny little hands together when Ellie was close enough for him to touch, his fingers gripping and tugging at her shirt. Ellie extended her arms to take him into her embrace. She loved him so much, loved being a parent so much - something she'd never even considered before had become a top priority in her life at the drop of a hat. He and Dina were her family - through darkness and light.

"Sorry," she said quietly to her partner as she neared, but Dina stopped her. 

"Don't be," she said understandingly. "We're just here to crash your pity party, that's all." 

She offered a smile, and Ellie did her best to smile back, though it came out lopsided and not-terribly-believable. While JJ was busy pulling at her ears, her mind was struggling to stay present. 

"Bad days happen," Dina continued, running a hand up and down Ellie's back in an attempt to ground her with physical touch. "But we're always in it together, right?"

Ellie's body seemed to be operating on autopilot as she bounced JJ, her gaze distant and empty. "Ellie," Dina said again when she failed to respond. "Right?"

She blinked after a moment, catching a glimpse of her little potato's concerned expression before looking past him and nodding. "Right. Yeah."

-

Some friends from Jackson had come by to help with everyday farm maintenance and to keep Dina's mind from straying too far. While Tommy and Robin herded sheep, she watched from behind the bedsheet she was hanging on the clothesline, hearing Ellie's infamous barnyard jokes echoing through her mind. 

_"What do you get when you cross an angry sheep with a moody cow?" Ellie'd break for a beat before dropping the punch. "An animal that's in a baaaaaad moooood!"_

JJ always liked that joke - not that he understood it, but Ellie's delivery had always been silly enough for him to get a good giggle out of it. Admittedly, it had worked on her as well.

She could feel the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes as she sighed, looking into the house through the screen door. Dina could almost see Ellie there, hunched over the record player, making the hardest decision she'd ever have to make in her life - what record to put on next. 

But Maria had insisted that the boxes and boxes of vinyl be moved up into Ellie's office, along with everything else associated with her. 

"No one's telling you to throw it away, hun," she'd told Dina when her immediate reaction was to spiral into a fit. "It'll be easier for you to cope if it's not always in your line of vision."

Tommy had closed the door to Ellie's office after bringing her guitar up from JJ's playroom. Dina had let him, if only to keep the others from shuffling around anymore of Ellie's belongings, but now, the guilt of shutting the door was eating away at her. She couldn't bear the thought of its symbolism - closing the door on that chapter of her life - because Ellie had never been just a chapter. She was Dina's main character, her hero, her knight in shining armor.

Even in death.

So when she was positive Tommy and Robin were inside the barn, too busy to keep tabs on her, Dina slipped back inside and up the stairs, her fingertips wrapped around the doorknob of the office. Ellie had called it her studio - it held all of her art, paintings of the farmhouse, sketches of JJ, drawings of Dina. Her journal, now tucked away in one of the desk's drawers. The journal that Ellie had torn a page out of to leave behind for Dina - an explanation. An apology. A final "I love you". A reminder that it wasn't her fault.

Dina pushed the door open and left it ajar.

"I won't let them act like you're gone forever," she whispered into the empty room, tears staining her cheeks. "I'm never going to close the book on you."

-

Dina was heading into Jackson with JJ for the day, and when she extended an offer to Ellie, she'd expected a no. And a no was what she'd gotten.

Ellie hadn't been herself lately, and as desperately as she wanted to stay back, Dina had promised Robin a day visit with JJ while she ran errands and said hello to old friends. So she scribbled a reminder to Ellie on a notepad - remember that Tommy and Maria are coming for dinner - before yelling a "bye, I love you" up the stairs to Ellie, who was wrapped in the sheets that were saturated with her sweat. 

"I love you," she'd called back meekly. Maybe Dina hadn't even heard.

She hadn't slept that night. Her tossing and turning, along with the memories of Joel's skull being crushed before her eyes, had kept any signs of sleep at bay. She had tried - goddamn, had she tried - but ultimately, all Ellie had ended up doing was messing her hair up.

So when she finally mustered the strength to move to her studio from the bedroom, she plopped down into the chair at the desk and started scribbling. Ramblings from her brain emptied themselves onto the paper until the ink from her pen started to give. Sketches of Joel, his eyes scratched out. Sketches of JJ captioned "little potato". 

The darkness and the light.

_I found some old rope in the barn's loft the other day. When we went to Seattle, I couldn't help but study how the Seraphites tied nooses. They seemed meticulously crafted - and fuck, did those assholes know how to use them. I taught myself how to do it. I wish I hadn't. Curiosity killed the cat._

Ellie set a record on the turntable, manually turning the handle a few times before the music began to fill the house. She sat down at the table with her notebook and tore out a singular page. She couldn't allow herself to ramble. This wasn't the time to scratch every other word out.

**_I think if I ruin this  
That I know I can live with it  
Nothing turns out like I pictured it  
Maybe the emptiness is just a lesson in canvases  
I think if I fail again  
That I know you're still listening  
Maybe it's all gonna turn out alright  
And I know that it's not, but I have to believe that it is. _** ____

__"Dina,  
For once, I don't know what to say. I don't know how to fix this. I am tormented by images in my mind that make me wish that I could dunk my brain in bleach for relief. I am desperate for relief. I cannot expect you to carry the weight of my burdens, along with the weight of running a household, raising a child, taking care of the farm. I cannot continue to live the way that I am living now. I haven't slept in three days. I haven't eaten in equally as long. I am being reduced to a bag of bones. I know I am not the same person that you fell in love with. I am not the same person that JJ used to know. Even he can see that something is off. I hope that he is young enough to never remember me - to never have to know the pain of losing someone who cared for him. I never wanted to hurt you, Dina. But I am fighting a losing battle - trying to climb uphill when the ground beneath my feet is slick and always giving.  
I hope that you know what you mean to me, but I am so tired. I know that you are tired, too. I know that you wish that we could go back to how things used to be - but we can't.  
I hope that only the best memories stay with you. I hope you can find peace.  
I love you to the end of the universe and back.  
I hope that you will come to visit me. I hope that you will forgive me.  
Forever yours,  
Ellie"_ _

__The barn creaked and groaned as she strung up the rope from the old rafters. As she stood at the ledge of the loft, Ellie's heart beat erratically as she struggled to fight through the strangling sobs that pushed into her throat. She had always wondered if it was true - the idea that death brought on a film reel of only the sweetest memories._ _

__She closed her eyes, letting them play like a movie against the back of her eyelids. Boston. Riley. St. Mary's Hospital. The beautiful mountains of Colorado. Joel telling her to get some rest as she awoke in the backseat of a car. Jackson. Dina. Cat. Dina. Dina. Dina. Joel. Seattle. The Seraphites. The WLF. Abby. Abby. Abby. Jesse. The bloodshed she'd left in her wake. Jackson. The farm. JJ. Dina._ _

__... _Dina.__ _

__Tears cascaded freely from her eyes as she looked down, tossing her knife down to the floor of the barn._ _

__"I'm so sorry," she whimpered before taking in a shallow, shaking breath and stepping off of the loft._ _

__At last, she could finally sleep._ _

__-_ _

__"Mama!"_ _

__JJ toddled excitedly through the grass as Dina trailed behind him, a blanket and picnic basket in tow. She smiled meekly. "Yeah," she told him gently as he wrapped his little arms around the tombstone that wasn't much shorter than he was. "There's your mama, huh?"_ _

__He plopped down, tracing his fingertips over the engraved letters. E-L-L-I-E._ _

__Dina sprawled the blanket out carefully, setting the basket down and following JJ's lead. "Did you say hi to grandpa Joel?" she asked him, swallowing past the lump in her throat. Despite the rain that had rolled in with spring, today was remarkably sunny, beams of light cascading through the graveyard. JJ ran through them, and Dina wondered if he could feel Ellie's embrace in their warmth._ _

__She sure could._ _

__"Hi guppa," JJ mumbled, tracing his fingertip through the divots of the lettering on the gravestone beside Ellie's. J-O-E-L._ _

__Dina pulled a small bunch of flowers from the basket, resting them over Ellie's grave and pressing a kiss against the stone._ _

__"Hi babe," she said gently. "We can actually feel you today." A singular tear latched onto Dina's eyelashes, falling to the blanket when she blinked it away. "I'm so glad."_ _

__JJ wobbled his way back to Dina, sitting in her lap as her arms wrapped around him snugly. "Miss you, mama," he said gently. The sound alone was enough to break the few clouds that had clustered together._ _

__"Everyday," Dina mumbled against the top of his head. "Every single day."_ _

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to say how grateful and eternally humbled I am for all of the positive feedback on this one. It’s been posted about 12 hours at the time of writing this A/N and your love for it has moved me. As I mentioned before in the notes at the beginning, this is something that not only I live with (to a totally different extent, obviously) and something that people I’ve known and cared for have lived with as well. It really is an uphill battle and I wanted to depict that despite how “good” your life can seem, if mental illness goes untreated for so long, it can have these dire consequences that not only impact the person struggling with it, but the people around them, as well. Therapy and talking to someone, working through the trauma and everything that comes with it, is such a brave and terrifying step. While ND did a really amazing job playing at this PTSD idea, especially after Seattle and once they’re back on the farm, I desperately hope that Ellie is able to get some help in a DLC or TLOU3.   
> Dina (and potato) are people I want to address here as well. Once we get to the farm scene, we see Dina balancing motherhood, the responsibilities of caring for their home, chores, all while simultaneously caring for Ellie. While Ellie is doing her best to be a good parent to JJ, if you read her journal, it talks about how she’s still obviously struggling, and that she only has some good days with him and Dina.  
> Unfortunately, to me it feels that Dina is doing her best to put on a brave face and care for her ailing partner and their son. It’s just so painful to watch. I desperately wish that I could take them, find a mental health professional, and sit them all down until they have a better understanding of what is happening - both to Ellie and ultimately to them as a family unit.
> 
> Again, thank you guys so, so much for taking the time to read this. It was absolutely not an easy read. I have some fluffy stuff in my catalog and typically do lean more towards angsty shit when I’m writing, but I think these two have suffered enough, so what is coming in the future will likely stay a bit softer and easier to swallow.
> 
> So much love for you all - may your survival be long. :p


End file.
